CVE-2020-1764 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.6) CWE-321 vulnerability in github.com/kiali/kiali. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for github.com/kiali/kiali — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Hard coded cryptographic key in Kiali
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-1764 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,386 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
github.com/kiali/kialiReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
A hard-coded cryptographic key vulnerability in the default configuration file was found in Kiali, all versions prior to 1.15.1. A remote attacker could abuse this flaw by creating their own JWT signed tokens and bypass Kiali authentication mechanisms, possibly gaining privileges to view and alter the Istio configuration.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/kiali/kiali | all versions | 1.15.1go get github.com/kiali/kiali@v1.15.1 |
Affected Products
kialikialiopenshift service meshredhatResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/kiali/kiali, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/kiali/kiali to 1.15.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-1764 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Escape or sanitise the affected output on the server side rather than relying on client-side filtering, and add a Content-Security-Policy that blocks inline script execution so injected markup cannot run even if it reaches the page.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
If exploited, an attacker can perform all Kiali admin functions via the API including: - View the logs of a pod - View Istio metrics, tracing etc. - Alter Istio routing configurations: - Change the pod availability: adding variances to the weighting, i.e. all traffic goes to 1 pod, or 95% of all traffic. - Prevent…
The Kiali configuration can be manually updated for ServiceMesh so that the default signing_key cannot be easily determined: oc get kiali -n $(oc get kiali --all-namespaces --no-headers -o custom-columns=NS:.metadata.namespace) -o yaml | sed "s/spec:/spec:\n login_token:\n signing_key: $(chars=abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890; for i in {1..20}; do echo -n "${chars:RANDOM%${#chars}:1}"; done; echo)/" | oc apply -f -Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2020-1764 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Openshift Service Mesh 1.0 | openshift-service-mesh/kiali-rhel7-operator:1.0.12-2 | RHSA-2020:0975 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-1764 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.